Statesman is very busy these days and is out-of-pocket (unavailable), but this bud is for him (maybe I’ll e-mail him about it later). You remember Statesman, the brother from another mother who believed that Larry Hughes was a useful engine; yes, that same Larry Hughes who has hit one shot all pre-season; the same Hughes who shot enough bricks to rebuild the imploded projects in St. Louis AND Chicago; the same Larry Hughes drought on by that managerial genius Donny Walsh, who needed to fill traded Jamal Crawford’s shoes. Well, consistent with his personnel analysis misses, States has always dogged Jamal Crawford. While some of it was justified, Craw was still one of the better non-defensive, offensive talents on the Knicks these last three year. Now it appears that Jamal has found a home in Atlanta after being traded to the Atlanta Hawks from the dysfunctional Nellie-Warriors. Not only will Jamal make his home near his son who lives in the Atl during the school year, but he is also receiving great love from the coach and his teammates.

Crawford, who has always said the right thing in the face of instability and adversity claims he is in Atlanta to fit in with his team.

“My main goal is just trying to fit in,” Crawford said. “When you have a team as talented as this one, it’s intimidating because you don’t want to mess anything up. You just want to help. And I know I can help this team win. And I know they can help me be a better player, too.”

However Craw’s teammates and coach expect him to do more than fit in:

“I’m from the same area [Seattle] he’s from, so we’ve gotten to play a lot together,” Hawks forward Marvin Williams said. “We have a special chemistry on the court, but Jamal’s the kind of player that can play with anybody.” and

“Our bigs love him,” Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. “I knew he could score, but he can also run a team. On pick-and-rolls, he’s dropping the ball off for easy buckets for our bigs, where in the past they might not have gotten the ball.

“He’s still learning what we like to do defensively, but no question, his impact on the team is felt.”

It remains to be seen what his impact will be. During the pre-season, in three games, he averaged only 35% FG%, 40% from the tre-arc, 2.7 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 5.3 points. Not earth shattering, but as you may recall he ahd an awful pre-season last year before he played well in the first few regular season games for the Knicks before he was traded to GS. I fo one hope he does well and is able to take advantage of this opportunity to finally make the playoffs. Remember, Phil Mickelson was once the best golfer never to win a major — now look at him. Crawford’s streak of being on bad teams has ended, so his non-playoff streak is likely to end.